There aren’t many sectors that haven’t felt the icy grip of the global pandemic over the past 18 months. It’s been horrendous for many, with aviation, travel, and hospitality all hit particularly hard by the succession of lockdowns.
Almost without exception, your members will be under some level of economic pressure. With profit margins squeezed drought dry, they’ll expect to see their investment and subscriptions work harder than ever before. As a membership organisation these days, you’ll not only need to spend wisely but also clearly demonstrate that you’re getting a lot of bang for their bucks.
You’ll need to wring every bit of value you can from your budgets, and quite rightly, you and they will want to see the impact of every cent spent. At the same time, your members will be looking to you for support, guidance and that sense of fellowship more than ever.
We know a common bugbear, and hot-button topic for many association members is the digital and web-based back-office functionality provided by their umbrella partners. Your members need to get into their membership pages fuss-free, so they can quickly search information libraries, promote their business, and talk to other members without a whole load of time-consuming site management from you. Giving them this vital support quickly and efficiently has perhaps never been so important.
They’re just one set of stakeholders you’ll likely have to have to please, of course. Any new forward-facing, public welcoming web presence needs to look the part and, just like the back-office members’ function, allow visitors to find what they need quickly, all the while promoting you and your members.
Just building a new website with some nice new imagery often doesn’t really cut it, but it can be a lever to something more worthwhile as a project. You can spend big money on a new site alone and miss out on the impact a brand refresh can have.
By selecting an experienced agency that knows and has worked with several membership organisations for many years, you can make your budget work harder, deliver back-office and front-end solutions and invigorate your brand.
It takes a bit more of a 360 holistic view than the ones you may have been presented with by agencies in web and digital comms pitches in the past. A few new pics and some up-to-date copy may hold the fort for a while, but such a narrow approach can’t match a proper brand review and evolution as part of a broader digital refresh campaign.
Taking this wider approach and working with an experienced agency partner who knows tech, content and can make the complex simple can breathe new life into your look and feel and deliver on your data KPIs. It can lift web traffic (+20 per cent in one recent project) provide the information your public need and the back-office support and functionality your members demand.
Crucially, going through the process of evolving your brand will inform the content, design and layout of your new site and other digital assets. It really is a win-win, 360 way of doing things.
It’s spend with a purpose. Members won’t see it as a big cash, big brand revamp done during sensitive financial times. Instead, they’ll feel the benefits of what is a longer-term investment.
They’ll reap those benefits both directly and through their association with you and what you’ll become after a proper brand and digital refresh, a modern, dynamic membership association with a fantastic user-friendly website and an exciting brand story to tell.
The Surgery is a communications agency blending design, digital and internal communications in a way that just makes sense.
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